Devotionals

Consider today your prayers and ask yourself if they are kingdom-focused. Do you pray for, work toward, and anticipate the saving rule of God? Do you intercede for friends, family, and neighbors to hallow the Lord’s name? Are you praying ...Read More

The prohibition against taking the Lord’s name in vain (Deut. 5:11) includes more than direct blasphemy. Many of the passages for today’s further study show that we blaspheme when we claim to follow God and then flagrantly disobey Him. Take ...Read More

Far from the universalism at the core of Harnack’s definition of Christianity, true, biblical faith is essentially exclusivistic. There is only one God, and the only way to Him is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6). Our ...Read More

Some people reading this study today may have difficulty calling God “Father” because their own earthly fathers were cold, abusive, or neglectful. But the One to whom we pray does not share the imperfections of our earthly fathers, no matter ...Read More

Jesus emphasizes that prayer should reflect a certain private intimacy between the believer and God in Matthew 6:5–6. There is something so intimate about prayer that we should long to pray in private long before we do so in public. ...Read More

Deuteronomy 29:29 distinguishes between the Lord’s secret and revealed wills. His secret will contains the unalterable decrees by which He foreordains all things that come to pass. These decrees are basically unknown to us, and for the most part, we ...Read More

The righteous may feel some effects of divine judgment if they associate with the wicked. But even in such suffering, Matthew Henry shows us there is a difference in how a Christian responds to hardship. He writes, “Though they [the ...Read More

Hear the words of Jesus in John 15:14–15: “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have ...Read More

How often are we like Sarah — unable to believe that God is able to do all those things He has promised? We do well to remember, as John Calvin says, that when we doubt like Sarah did, “we also ...Read More

Our Lord and Savior said that what is impossible with men is possible with God (Luke 18:27). When we consider the trials in our lives without trust and confidence in the Lord’s sovereignty, we will crumble under the weight. However, ...Read More